Ormond author shines light on overlooked WWII division

Jim Abbott @JimAbbottwrites

Wednesday

Dec 6, 2017 at 10:43 AMDec 6, 2017 at 12:17 PM

ORMOND BEACH – Author Bob Baumer has been writing about World War II history for two decades, but it was only recently he learned of the National Guard’s Old Hickory 30th Infantry Division, a plucky underdog band of Southern-bred citizen soldiers who prevailed over Hitler’s most formidable troops.

After brushing against the story of the 30th Division in a 2015 book on the battle of Aachen, the first city on German soil to be captured by the Allies, Baumer was incredulous about the lack of information published on the division that was nicknamed "Old Hickory," a nod to President Andrew Jackson.

“These guys are good,” Baumer, 69, said on a recent afternoon in his Ormond Beach home, recalling the moment that he first considered devoting a book to Old Hickory’s story. “So why have I never heard of them before?”

Baumer’s account of the citizen soldiers’ exploits, “Old Hickory: The 30th Division: The Top-Rated American Infantry Division in Europe in World War II” (Stackpole Books, 584 pages), was published this past summer.

It’s a well-timed boost to a grass roots movement by military officials and historians to garner long overdue official recognition for the 30th Division, somehow overlooked for a Presidential Unit Citation for their service through a combination of bureaucratic processes and time.

The push for presidential recognition recently received another high-profile push when NBC’s Tom Brokaw, known for his books on "The Greatest Generation," reported Old Hickory’s story on the network’s “Today” show.

For those familiar with Old Hickory’s heroism, the snub of more than 70 years is an outrageous injustice.

“They were just relentless, just had an indomitable spirit,” said Maj. Gen. Gregory Lusk, adjutant general of the North Carolina National Guard and another advocate of presidential recognition for the Old Hickory Division. “This group of men, they didn’t quit. They were just determined to end this war as quickly as humanly possible. They never backed up, just kept pushing forward.”

Old Hickory soldiers fought on D-Day and at the Battle of the Bulge, but historians generally agree that the 30th Division’s finest moments unfolded in August 1944 in the battle of Mortain, a French village that was key to Hitler’s plan to defeat Allied Forces in Europe. At Mortain, Old Hickory soldiers were vastly outnumbered: 12,000 National Guardsmen against 25,000 Germans equipped with 200 tanks representing four of Hitler’s Panzer divisions.

The Old Hickory Division prevailed, allowing Gen. Patton’s forces to execute the strategy that resulted in the defeat of the German Seventh Army. Old Hickory was recommended for a Division Level Presidential Unit citation, but the award was never issued.

On the battlefield, the Old Hickory Division’s tactics often went outside the lines of the Army’s standard operating procedure in favor of imaginative plans based on experiences tracking and hunting in wilderness fields in the Carolinas, Georgia and Tennessee, Baumer said.

“They were all Southern boys, with that scrappiness and imagination that came from being out in the country,” said Baumer, who started writing books near the end of a career in information technology at IBM. After he retired from that job, he moved to Ormond Beach from Connecticut in 2011. “They were trained, but they also were capable of imaginative maneuvers that were repeated again and again as they crossed Europe.”

For example, instead of holding position as the division awaited orders for an attack, making the soldiers sitting ducks for German artillery attacks, the men would sneak around to gain position on nearby German units and attack them first, Baumer said.

At the battle of Mortain, an under-sized battalion of Old Hickory soldiers, roughly 700 men, disabled 30 German tanks on a main highway about a mile from the village before they could take a strategic landmark, Hill 314, that would have offered the Germans an open path to the sea, Baumer said.

“Because of their grit and toughness, and the lessons they had learned fighting in the hedgerows, they were efficient at innovative ways to go after the enemy,” Baumer said. “With a combination of bazookas and anti-tank weapons, this battalion stopped 30 German tanks in about three hours of fighting.”

To do it, the Old Hickory soldiers stopped the first tank in line, knowing that the delay would cause confusion among those following it. When other tank commanders emerged to investigate, Old Hickory soldiers fired on them, too.

When tanks attempted to leave the road to go around the blockage, they became mired in deep mud. Finally, the last tank in line also was disabled, preventing others from retreating, Baumer said.

“The stand at Mortain alone would have made them eligible for this award (the presidential citation),” said Col. Wes Morrison of the North Carolina National Guard, another advocate for the division receiving its long overdue recognition. “The failure at Mortain would have caused a revision of the Allies’ plans second only to the failure of D-Day at Normandy.”

Those pushing for Old Hickory’s award report that there have been some encouraging developments. After the publicity generated by Baumer’s book, the NBC report and a documentary film on the division, “Heroes of Old Hickory,” the Army has “boarded” the decision, an important step toward reconsidering the issue, Baumer said.

“It’s taking it up as high as it can go, for lack of a better word, for a revisiting of this,” said Baumer, who estimates that there are less than 100 Old Hickory veterans still alive. “When a corporation is going to change direction or policy it goes to the board of directors for review and this is similar to that. We couldn’t have asked for more at this point in time.”

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